Atlantosaurus

Atlantosaurus (meaning "Atlas lizard") is a dubious genus of sauropod dinosaur. It contains a single species, Atlantosaurus montanus, from the Late Jurassic upper Morrison Formation of Colorado, United States. Atlantosaurus was the first sauropod to be described during the infamous 19th century Bone Wars, during which scientific methodology suffered in favor of pursuit of academic acclaim.

==History== The type specimen, YPM 1835, found by Arthur Lakes in Lakes Quarry Number 1 in the Morrison Formation of Colorado, United States, was named and described by Othniel Charles Marsh, Professor of Paleontology at Yale University (then called Yale College), in July 1877 as Titanosaurus montanus. Marsh soon learned that the name Titanosaurus had already been used earlier that year by Richard Lydekker to describe a different sauropod from India, so he renamed it Atlantosaurus montanus. Marsh estimated the length of the animal at twenty-four metres, "if built like a crocodile".